UPDATE 1-California storms to dump up to 7 feet of snow, force evacuations

A big Pacific storm is set to dump up to
seven feet of snow in California's Sierra Nevada mountains and
several inches of rain elsewhere in the state on Wednesday and
Thursday, compounding the flood risk after earlier rain storms
blew through the state.

"The big one is rolling in late morning today, that's for
darn sure," said meteorologist David Roth with the National
Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park,
Maryland.

Police in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties ordered
evacuations Tuesday from areas damaged by last year's wildfires
because of the risk heavy rain would trigger mud and debris
flows on charred hillsides.

Significant road closures and travel delays were possible in
the Los Angeles area given risks of flash flooding and
rockslides, the NWS reported.

An earlier storm moved over Southern California on Tuesday,
with about 2 inches of rain in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura
Counties and up to 4.5 inches in the Santa Monica Mountains, the
NWS reported.

The new storm brewing out at sea will probably bring areas
north of Santa Barbara up to 3 inches (7.6 cm) of rain. As much
as seven feet of snow was possible over 6,000 feet (1,829
meters) in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The weather is a boon for California's farmers and ski
areas, given most of the state is recovering from years of
drought, according to the United States Drought Monitor.

The wild weather is the result of moisture-laden winds from
the Pacific known as "atmospheric rivers."

The first storm will reach the U.S. Midwest and Northeast on
Thursday and Friday, gathering more moisture from the Gulf of
Mexico. The second storm will hit the central and eastern United
States through the weekend, forecasters said.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; additional reporting by
Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Grant McCool and
Peter Graff)